Good news and sad news

I can't claim to know much about US wine importer Joe Dressner who sadly died of cancer this week but I do know that he did almost more than anyone else to raise the profile of natural wines in the states.

There have been a number of fine tributes* by US wine writers and bloggers including this intensely personal post from Alice Feiring, and affectionate reminiscences from Jon Bonné of the San Francisco Chronicle and Eric Asimov of the New York Times who also wrote a more formal obituary here. He sounded like quite a guy.

And the good news? That two natural wine champions were honoured in last night's Louis Roederer International Wine Writers' Awards. Alice as Online Wine Writer of the Year for her posts on Alice Feiring and Max Allen for his marvellous book The Future Makers: Australian Wines for the 21st century which my husband is currently reading - and so am I when I can prise it away from him. Congratulations to both of them.

*there's also another eloquent one here on Wine Terroirs.

The Dirty Dozen: tasting of the year?

Wine tastings aren't half as much fun as they seem from the outside. They're usually huge, overheated, crowded and full of dull wines. Or, at least, most of them are dull.

The Dirty Dozen tasting was only guilty of one of those crimes - it was ridiculously cramped due, apparently, to the fact that the ceiling of the room it had been booked to take place in at the English Speaking Union had collapsed so it was held in a conservatory at the side whose wooden floor creaked ominously as the several hundred members of the press and wine trade milled around it.

The wines, however, were just thrilling. I started with a selection to which each merchant had contributed 2 bottles and there wasn't a dud one among them.

So who are the (surely misnamed) Dirty Dozen? A group of wine merchants who specialise in artisanal producers including a fair number of organic, biodynamic and natural winemakers. They included some familiar ones to me - Aubert & Mascoli (hardcore natural), Burgundy specialists Flint Wines, Indigo Wines (largely Spain) , London-based Roberson, Bristol-based Vine Trail (very well sourced wines from France) and German specialist The WineBarn, so having a limited amount of time I concentrated on a few I wasn't so familiar with.

The highlight was fortyfive10° which imports Italian wines from family-owned domains, the idea being to deal with estates that have form when it comes to winemaking. The owner Massimiliano Jacobacci states that he looks for "wines that express the history of a region through traditional wine making techniques as opposed to the current trend for wines of immediate accessibility at the expense of complexity and longevity." Or, as he put it to me more simply "We don't do entry level wines. I don't like them and I don't want to sell them."

So their wines obviously don't come cheap but if you want to be blown away dig deep in your pockets and buy a bottle of the stunning Sodi di San Niccolo from Chianti producer Castellare di Castellina, a beautifully crafted blend of Sangioveto and Malvasia Nera and one of the most delicious reds I've tasted this year. (My tasting note says 'heaven'!) The vintage I tried was the 2005 which doesn't seem to be in the market but you can find the 2004 from a wine and events company called A Moveable Feast in which Jacobacci also seems to be involved.

They (fortyfive10°) also supply a number of high profile London restaurants including Chez Bruce, The Ledbury, Polpo, Roka and the River Café.

Anyway I suggest you get yourself on the mailing list of all these importers and make sure, if you're in the trade, that you get to The Dirty Dozen tasting next year. Which I hope will be in a larger room.

Saint-Véran and Syrah

We had friends over last night who are beginning to take an interest in natural wine so pulled out a couple of good bottles for them.

First off a Saint-Véran La Barnaudière 2007 (above) from Arnaud Combier who we visited in Burgundy roughly this time last year. It has that lovely pure acidity and minerality you get in natural wine, not unlike a premier cru Chablis, despite being so much further south in the Maçonnais. We drank it with a pasta bake made with ceps we brought back from the Auvergne and it was perfect.

Then a 2009 Syrah Vin de Pays de l'Ardèche from Hervé Souhaut we picked up from Chais Christine Cannac in Bédarieux. Souhaut, a bit of a cult winemaker whose wines we've been meaning to try for some time, worked with Dard et Ribo but now makes his own wine at Domaine Romaneaux-Destezet in Arlebosc in the Ardèche.

Although just 12.19% (I love the ironic precision of that ABV) it was full of flavour with the violetty, smoky character that makes young syrah so seductive. And that syrah pepperiness of course.

Great bottles to convince someone why natural wine is worth drinking. And frankly, pure pleasure for us to drink too.

Both producers are stocked by Les Caves de Pyrène.

Loirette blonde: a natural beer

One of the many appealing things about the Auberge de Chassignolles, about which I've been raving recently, is the fact that they stock a really good beer, alongside their natural wines - the Loirette Blonde from Brasserie de la Pigeonelle in Touraine.

According to the label it's made from organic ingredients, unfiltered and unpasteurised without any additives although I see it does contain sugar.

That makes it taste quite sweet though not nearly as sweet as Leffe, say. And oddly the 75cl bottle isn't as rich as the 33cl one though there is some variation between bottles. (Yes, I tried a number of them.) There's also something of a wheat beer about it though it's made from malted barley.

Apparently it's the favourite beer of the Loire's natural winemakers which I suppose makes it a natural beer. Anyway, it's delicious - look out for it.

Chai Christine Cannac, Bédarieux

From the Auvergne to the Languedoc - specifically Bédarieux, an attractive town in the Vallée de l'Orb we haven't visited for a while. But we'd heard there was a good natural wine bar and shop there and finally made it up there for lunch today.

Christine Cannac (above) has worked as a sommelier all over the Languedoc but came back to set up a wine bar in her home town a couple of years ago. She'd become more and more drawn to natural wines, she told us. Her wine list is a roll-call of the great and the good including Casot des Mailloles, Marcel Lapierre, Dard et Ribo, Thierry Allemand and Léon Barral in nearby Faugères.

We initially made the mistake of ordering a couple of unknown (to us) wines by the glass - a grenache gris called La Begou from Maxime Magnon and a rather over-funky rosé called Plait-t'il from Le Petite Baigneuse - which I don't think were showing at their best. Possibly they'd just been open too long.


So we switched to a bright, breezy vin de soif called Fou du Roi from Axel Prüfer of Le Temps des Cerises just up the road at Le Mas Blanc which was perfect with our shared platter of charcuterie. According to the Australian importer Living Wines, which rather impressively ships it over to Tasmania, it's a blend of Grenache, Cinsault and Carignan.



We drove up the road to see if Axel was around but the winery was firmly shut up. Shame. He sounds quite a character.


Anyway if you're in the area Chai Christine Cannac is a good place to drop by for a drink. Just order by the bottle. The bar is at 3 square Robert Schumann, 34600 Bédarieux. Tel: 04 67 95 86 14.

Auberge de Chassignolles: a natural wine hotel

Ever since I visited the natural wine bar Gergovie earlier this year and found out that owner Harry Lester (below) ran a hotel in the Auvergne called the Auberge de Chassignolles during the summer I’ve been dying to go.

And last week we made it and spent 3 indulgent nights there.

It’s just as good as I’d hoped. A tiny village set in glorious unspoilt countryside about 950m above sea level, surrounded by dense forests and rolling green pastures it’s as good a get-away-from-it-all destination as you can imagine.



Our room overlooked a 12th century Romanesque church


The auberge operates on a dinner, bed and breakfast basis, dinner being a 5 course prix fixe affair that changes every night - fantastic value for 24 euros a head.



Harry also has a serious, largely natural wine list which we made good use of - highlights being the 2008 Domaine Michel Lafarge Raisins Dorées Bourgogne Aligoté, the 2008 Elian da Ros Cotes du Marmandais, Le Vin est une Fête and Antoine Arena Carco 2009 from Patrimonio in Corsica. There are also some great classics such as Domaine Tempier Bandol, Thierry Allemand’s Cornas, Grange des Pères and a 1999 vintage of Domaine de Trévallon.


In fact it was so perfect we’re squeezing in another night on the way home next week ;-)

Note: the hotel closes for the summer at the end of September

Gamay sans Tra La La 2010

We took this wine on a picnic this week. Well, a sort of picnic. We took the day ferry from Poole to Cherbourg (narrowly missing the floods) and decided to forgo the delights of the cafeteria service and take our own sandwiches (parma ham and basil, since you ask).

A bright breezy gamay, served well chilled seemed the perfect accompaniment and so it proved. It was utterly delicious, full of wild berry fruit with a whiff of white pepper and a slightly earthy edge that stopped it being jammy.

It comes from Domaine de la Garrelière a biodynamically run estate in Touraine and is made with natural yeasts, unfined and unfiltered. Sans Tra La La, for those of you who don't speak French, roughly translates as gamay without fuss (or, more accurately, pretension).

Amazingly the remaining half bottle survived a 9 hour car journey and an overnight stay on our route to the Auverge and was still as fresh as a daisy, two days later. A genuine vin de soif.

You can buy it from Caves de Pyrène and Vinceremos for around £10-11 though the latter only seem to have the 2009 vintage currently.